Tuesday, April 29, 2014

This painting was exhibited first in 2008 at the "Color Invitations" exhibition at the R Street Gallery in Washington, DC and subsequently at the Red Door Gallery in Richmond, VA at my solo show there. It continued the
series commenced in 1999 based on my own military awards. With
this 2007 work, this series began to create new imaginary military awards
conceived as future ribbons and medals to be awarded in future military
campaigns. I call this series "The Colors of Wars to Come" and it is discussed here.

The Iranian Campaign Medal was established by Executive Order 13875
signed by the President on 13 January 2015. It may be awarded to
American military and naval personnel for participating in prescribed
operations, campaigns and task forces ranging in dates from 2 November
2014 to present.

The area of operations for these various campaigns includes the total
land area and air space of Iran, and the waters and air space of the
Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean within 12 nautical miles of Iranian
coastline.

Personnel must be members of a unit participating in, or be engaged
in direct support of, the operation for 30 consecutive days in the area
of operations or for 60 non-consecutive days provided this support
involves entering the area of operations or meets one of the following
criteria:

• Be engaged in actual combat, or duty that is
equally as hazardous as combat duty, during the operation with armed
opposition, regardless of time in the area of operations;

• While participating in the operation, regardless of time, is wounded
or injured and requires medical evacuation from the area of operations;

• While participating as a regularly assigned aircrew member flying
sorties into, out of, within, or over the area of operations in direct
support of the military operations.

One bronze service star shall be worn on the ribbon for qualifying
participation during an established campaigns. However, that if an
individual's 30 or 60 days began in one campaign and carried over into
another, that person would only qualify for the medal with one service
star. The medal is not awarded without at least one service star.

The executive order provides that service members who qualify for
either the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal or the Armed Forces Service
Medal for service in Iran between 2 November 2014 and 12 January 2015,
remain qualified for those medals.

However, upon application, any such
member may be awarded the Iranian Campaign Medal in lieu of the Armed
Forces Expeditionary Medal or the Armed Forces Service Medal, but no
Service member may be awarded more than one of these three medals for
the same period of service in Iran.

The suspension ribbon for the medal's purple and gold colors were
suggested by the historical Imperial colors of Iran’s millennial Persian
history and the golden sunsets of the Persian Gulf.